[lbo-talk] Some Leftists Draw All The Wrong Lessons

Jon Johanning jjohanning at igc.org
Sat Nov 6 09:01:54 PST 2004


On Nov 5, 2004, at 8:45 PM, Brad Mayer wrote:


> Yes let the self-flagelletion begin. Lets blame Michael Moore and
> Hollywood, and lets follow Clinton and pander to reactionary "moral
> values".
>
> What about OUR moral values?

Oh, I certainly would never blame Moore (as for Hollywood, that's hardly a target with enough stature to bother roughing up). And I fully agree with those who argue that the Left needs to be more vigorous in stating its moral positions. One of the big mistakes of left radicals for a long time, IMHO, has been the quasi-Marxist (faux-Marxist) idea that political agitation has to eschew all moral language, and just talk about "material issues." Every progressive movement that has accomplished anything in U.S. history has been based on moral convictions, from anti-slavery agitation to early 20th century progressivism and populism, the union movement, the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, etc., etc.


> Look, this 30% that voted for Bush is the same bunch more or less that
> voted for Reagan in '84. Little has changed here (except that we've
> wasted 20 years), because this rightwing bunch DOESN'T WANT TO CHANGE.

What I call the "core" of it certainly doesn't, including Bush, his entourage, a lot of the capitalist higher circles, and the most fanatical religious types. But a goodly part (I'm not sure how to quantify them exactly) of the Bush voters are undoubtedly open to change, if they are approached properly. They'd better be, or there won't ever be a way out of the present political impasse.


> So, unless you are an Elect or Die Democrat, these are the very last
> people we need to be concerned with. This reactionary bloc needs to
> be broken up and defeated, not pandered to.

Broken up, yes. But to do that, we have to pry the less committed fringe away from the immovable core. That's not pandering, it's intelligent political work. You have to start by, at a minimum, stopping insulting them (and remember that by "them," I'm not talking about the core, but the fringe folks who are susceptible to being wooed away from following the core's leadership). Radicals simply have to discipline themselves to refrain from calling people they disagree with politically dolts, cretins, shit-heads, and so on. Every good Leftist venerates people like Debs. Did Debs ever use this kind of language? I don't think so.


> We should be much more concerned about the 70% of the population that
> DID NOT vote for the Chimp, including the millions in the so-called
> "red" states who voted against him.

And also some of the ones who voted for them -- the ones whose minds can be changed. And I think a lot of those minds can be changed, if, I repeat, they are approached in an intelligent way.

Look, I will say this about the folks who want to take the third-party route. If (as I expect) Bush doesn't take a "conciliatory" line, but goes on pushing his reactionary line to the limit, the question is to what extent the remaining Democrats in Congress resist. Already, there is a story in today's Times that Dodd, Shumer, and Corzine are seriously considering giving up their Senate positions, because they are sick of being in a permanent minority opposition. If Congressional Democrats wimp out, that will certainly sour an awful lot of rank-and-file Democrats on the leadership of their party, and they might be open to helping organize a new party.

Also, the remaining "moderate" Republicans are thinking about jumping ship, though most of them would probably take the Jeffords route to the Dem Party. My very own Senator (of whom I am very proud -- NOT!) Specter seems to be receiving a lot of pressure from the rest of his party for announcing that he would drag his heels on anti-abortion Supreme Court nominees, and it is no doubt getting very hot for that wing of the GOP. But there are only a pitiful few of them left (mostly in the blue states), and I doubt that they would contribute much weight to a third-party effort, even if they joined up en masse.

So if we take stock of our total personnel for a radical third party, what do we have? Some disaffected Democratic rank-and-file (hard to say how many), the existing third-party stalwarts (a very tiny bunch), some Greenies and Naderites (ditto). Supposing *all* of them were able to flock together, cook up a viable organizational structure in the next two or three years, avoid the usual intractable internecine battles, and produce a political force that would amount to something in the real world. What would be the result in 2008? Assume that the Democratic Party (which will still be around) nominates a half-way decent candidate (not, of course, Ms. Clinton). The result will undoubtedly be that the anti-Republican vote will be split between Democrats and the new third party, producing yet another Republican president for 2008-2012 or 2008-2016. How many of these new third-party Congressional candidates (assuming the party puts up anyone for Congress) will be elected and be in position to actually have an effect in the real-world operations of government?

In spinning out this scenario, I have made what I think are the most positive possible assumptions about a third-party effort. I still have not seen any serious discussion of the sorts of questions I have raised, and many others I could probably come up with if I put a little more time in. That's why I don't think that you third-party advocates are really very serious. You have a lot of animosity toward the DP, and a gut hatred of the reactionary RP. (BTW, I always wonder why you guys spend all your time trying to destroy the DP -- why don't you think about how to destroy the RP, too?) But you're just running on emotions and gut feelings. You don't have any real theory of how to get what you want. As far as I can tell, you're assuming a lot of half-baked quasi-Leninist ideas that a little band of cadres can pull off some sort of Bolshevik-style revolution in 21st-century America. Sorry, but I can't take that notion seriously.

Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________________________ It isn’t that we believe in God, or don’t believe in God, or have suspended judgment about God, or consider that the God of theism is an inadequate symbol of our ultimate concern; it is just that we wish we didn’t have to have a view about God. It isn’t that we know that “God” is a cognitively meaningless expression, or that it has its role in a language-game other than fact-stating, or whatever. We just regret the fact that the word is used so much.

— Richard Rorty



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